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Operation We Are Here is a HUB of RESOURCES for the military community and military supporters.

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Breastfeeding in Combat Boots

A survival guide to successful breastfeeding while serving in the military

Author: Robyn Roche-Paull, Copyright @ 2010

While breastfeeding and employment are covered in many books and websites, none cover the unique circumstances and demands that accompany breastfeeding while on active duty. The award-winning book, Breastfeeding in Combat Boots: A Survival Guide to Breastfeeding Successfully While Serving in the Military, and the website www.breastfeedingincombatboots.com will fill that void and provide you with insight into both the rewarding and wonderful aspects of breastfeeding on active duty, but also give you a realistic look at the challenges that lay ahead for you. The book and website have been created to offer a practical and field-tested guide that will help military mothers from all branches of the armed forces find the information and support to successfully breastfeed with confidence. Is it possible to work full time on active duty and still be there to nurture and nurse your baby? YES! Except for some very unusual circumstances, with a little preparation, a “can do” attitude and some creativity, it is possible to breastfeed on while serving in the military and give the benefits of breastfeeding to yourself and your baby.

Fighter Pilot Parent

Leading your kids with lessons from the cockpit

Author: Brick Conners, Copyright @ 2019

There are no bad teams (i.e., kids). There are only less-than-perfect leaders (i.e., parents). So says former fighter pilot and parent of four, retired US Navy Captain “Brick” Conners. Conners believes good leadership drives every successful outcome, and good parenting is no different. As a Navy Strike Fighter Pilot, Brick amassed over 4500 hours and over 1000 carrier landings during multiple combat deployments. So he understands all too well the critical importance of leadership in enabling those under his command to take off and return safely. Every parent wants the same: to have our children take off into the world and its adventures, but to return home safely at the end of the day.

Conners links thrilling life-and-death experiences in leadership, adversity, and performance to practices and takeaways that will guide parents, grandparents, coaches, military personnel, and anyone else who wants to raise, develop, and lead children and young people. Through tools gleaned from his own experience as a pilot, parent, and coach, Conners shows how we can redefine our own leadership skills and develop the same in children, so that they are equipped to deal with the unavoidable hazards of growing up. As parents, if we’re not happy with how we’ve handled parenting challenges in the past, we will find ways to reevaluate and alter our course; if we have acted on values and beliefs that were not always ideal, we will learn how to take a different approach: one that can lead our children to extraordinary trajectories, increased success, and lifelong happiness.

Helping Your Young Child Cope with a Parent's Deployment

Author: Jerilyn Marler, Copyright @ 2013

This handbook is for parents who want their children to thrive despite extended separations from Mommy or Daddy. The first chapter discusses the special challenges and needs of young children during a parent's deployment and how parents can help them through the pain and grief of separation. Following chapters describe 22 easy-to-implement ways for children to stay connected with the away parent, be happy despite the separation, and look forward to a happy reunion. All resources mentioned in the book are listed together at the end for easy reference. Military parents with young children will want to keep this book handy!

How Did They Get Taller Than Me

Author: Kathy Woodbury, Copyright @ 2019

Our children progress from babies to adults in the blink of an eye, and we as parents are left wondering, "How did that happen?" With humor and biblical insights harvested from years of military travel, ministry, and raising two boys, author Kathy Woodbury reveals candid truths she has captured during the process of cultivating babies to adults. From a transparent glimpse of life in an imperfect family, readers are able to identify with this entertaining question: How Did They Get Taller Than Me? Each chapter proposes delightful and biblical encouragement in the formation of baby to adult. We study our children, we enjoy our children, we fight for our children, and we give our children to the One who knows HOW to make them who they are to be. In the end, our faith answers the question: How Did They Get Taller Than Me?

Raising Children in the Military

Authors: Cheryl Lawhorne-Scott, Don Philpott, and Jeff Scott

Military life places unique demands on military families with children including frequent moves, disruptions in schooling, family separation, health care issues, loss of friends, financial hardships, underemployment of military spouses, and the ever present threat of risk of injury or death of loved ones deployed. But learning how to navigate these challenges can help prepare families for those events as they arise.

Here, the authors have assembled information about common problem areas and have included detailed information about solutions and resources available. The information in this guide has been carefully gathered from hundreds of sources and resources and includes the most up to date information about child services and benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs, allowing serving members of the military with children to quickly access information that they need regarding all aspects of child care, from raising a family to education, and from coping with constant moves to grief counseling. It also covers other critical issues such as wellness, family solidarity, benefits, insurance and problems such as addiction and domestic violence. Readers will gain a better understanding of what child services and benefits are available and how to obtain them as well as secrets for successful relationships and family bonding.

Raising Men

Lessons Navy SEALs learned from their training and taught to their sons

Author: Eric Davis, Copyright @ 2016

After Eric Davis spent over 16 years in the military, including a decade in the SEAL Teams, his family was more than used to his absence on deployments and secret missions that could obscure his whereabouts for months at a time.

Without a father figure in his own life since the age of fifteen, Eric was desperate to maintain the bonds he’d fought so hard to forge when his children were young—particularly with his son, Jason, because he knew how difficult it was to face the challenge of becoming a man on one’s own. Unfortunately, Eric learned the hard way that Quality Time doesn’t always show up in Quantity Time.

Facebook, television, phones, video games, school, jobs, friends—they all got in the way of a real, meaningful father-son relationship. It was time to take action.

As a SEAL, Eric learned to innovate and push boundaries, allowing him to function at levels beyond what was expected, comfortable, ordinary, and even imaginable, and he knew that as a father he needed to do the same with his son. Meeting extreme with extreme was the only answer.

Using a unique blend of discipline, leadership, adventure, and grace, Eric and his SEAL brothers will teach you how to connect, and reconnect, with your sons and learn how to raise real men—the Navy SEAL way.

Surviving Military Separation

A 365-day activity guide for the families of deployed personnel

Author: Marc CB Maxwell, Copyright @ 2008

Family members know that today, military separation is common and that long deployments are the norm. Coping with everyday problems and hardships by themselves is very difficult, and often leads to loneliness and depression. In his day-to-day counseling of military family members, Marc CB Maxwell, a Department of Defense Guidance Counselor and former Army Airborne Ranger, discovered that many members of his military community were unprepared for these separations. Surviving Military Separation: A 365-Day Activity Guide for the Families of Deployed Personnel is the helping hand they need to get through their family member's deployment.

Marc's daily counseling quickly made it clear that his members required something fun, easy to understand, and enjoyable to pass the time. Surviving Military Separation is the first book on the market to provide everyday steps and activities to help guide family members through these particularly trying separations.

Lavishly illustrated with more than 140 pieces of original art by Val Laolagi, Surviving Military Separation is an activity guidebook created especially for family members of deployed personnel. This unique presentation offers 365 days of activities for the entire family. The book's setup allows readers to break down the lengthy deployment into weeklong chunks, which passes the deployment much more quickly by taking it one fun and creative step at a time.

Surviving Military Separation also includes: A section for journal entries for readers to record their thoughts and feelings for a deployed loved one to read at a later time; a calendar section to help family members remember important dates; stationery to write their deployed personnel; and a world map to assist family members in locating their deployed loved one.

Coming on the heels of the military's recent announcement of longer deployments, Surviving Military Separation is both timely and long overdue. Every family experiencing a military separation will find this book indispensable.

The Military Father

A hands-on guide for deployed dads

Author: Armin A. Brott, Copyright @ 2009

www.mrdad.com

A much-needed resource for the long-distance dads and dads-to-be, who are seeking information and advice on how to be involved with their family before, during, and after their deployment.

Written by the country's leading authority on fathers and families, The Military Father helps fathers and their families face the challenges of deployment and stay connected with their loved ones back home. Special topics covered include:

Unique issues that affect civilian contractors and nonmilitary government employees.

Challenges facing Reservists and National Guardsmen when they leave--and then return to--their civilian life.

What to do if your wife is going to have your baby while you're deployed.

How to stay involved as a single parent.

What happens when Mom is deployed.

Detailed, easy-to-use predeployment checklists.

An in-depth overview of child development, from pregnancy through age eighteen.

101 Ways to be a Long-Distance Super Dad...or Mom, Too!

Author: George Newman, Copyright @ 2006

101 Ways To Be A Long-Distance Super-Dad…or Mom, Too! offers helpful, practical tips for parents who live or work in one place, and whose children live in another. While divorce can geographically separate a mom or dad from a child, so can military service or a job requiring travel. This book can help parents remain an important part of their children’s lives.

Now in its 14th printing, the book is a must for parents who want to keep in close contact with their children, but find it difficult to overcome the barriers posed by distance. Award-winning journalist George Newman draws on his experience as a divorced father, sharing valuable tips for enriching the parent-child relationship, even during physical separation.

Parenting books for military families

Disclosure: Benita Koeman of Operation We Are Here is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. When you purchase a product that is linked to Amazon, I earn a small commission which in turn helps me to continue with my mission of providing resources to the military community and military supporters. Learn more...

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Books that offer help and advice with long-distance parenting, deployment, & military life